


Blossom and Bloom

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Falling In Love, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Living Together, M/M, Searching for inspiration, Snow and Ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8373355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: When they touch, Yuuri can feel the way that Victor’s mind is moving a million miles per hour.





	

Victor’s hometown is exactly as he has described it in interviews. 

“It’s,” Yuuri says, “really remote.”

Victor smiles. He doesn’t look at Yuuri. He keeps his eyes on the map, tracing his forefinger from the unlabeled space that he’d indicated as his birthplace to the nearest town. The lighting from the strange, curved, terribly modern lamp that he has over the coffee table he brought with him to Yu-Topia is very bright. It highlights the tiny pockmarks from long-removed pins that must have decorated the map at some point.

“I started dancing here,” he says, tapping the point before removing his hand and reaching for his beer glass. “We have four theatres, and an opera, and a ballet school. I was very good. That is how I got to Moscow.”

Yuuri watches him take a long swallow of his beer. In an old magazine interview, Victor had been quoted as saying he wanted to be a dancer. He hadn’t said that he’d started off that way.

“So you didn’t start off skating?”

Victor swallows. Blinks. He sets down his glass, a smaller smile on his lips. He eyes Yuuri. It looks playful, except the rest of his body doesn’t move at all.

“Moscow is very different,” he says, “so I went into skating instead.”

For some reason, he seems to find this hilarious, dissolving into short little giggles as he reaches for his beer again. Yuuri smiles, even though he doesn’t understand why Victor is laughing. Then again, he isn’t entirely sure why they’re talking about this at all. It’s almost midnight, and they’d migrated from the dining room at ten to avoid disturbing other guests. Yuuri had had a glass of beer himself three hours ago. He regrets it. He can’t remember how they got to this topic. How he got Victor to talk about himself.

Maybe Victor is drunk. It’s hard to tell. His default persona makes him seem perpetually drunk.

“It’s late,” Yuuri says as Victor considers the bottom of his glass. “I should go to bed.”

A low hum. An absent nod. Victor puts the glass down before leaning back and stretching. The fabric of the yukata shifts. It looks like it wants to escape him.

“Okay,” he yawns, shifting around and pushing himself to his feet. “Good night. I’m going to take Makkachin out.”

Yuuri falls asleep before they come back.

 

The conversation bothers Yuuri. 

In between training, dodging the media, and trying not to be too much of a burden on his family as he’s effectively taken over their life by coming home, the memory of that conversation bubbles up. Yuuri isn’t sure why it bothers him. He feels like he should be elated. He’s consumed every piece of information available about Victor Nikiforov in print and online for most of his life. At times, he’s been more certain of how to answer questions about Victor than about himself. 

Maybe, Yuuri realises as he watches Victor roughhousing with Makkachin in the snow outside of the Ice Castle, that’s the problem. 

Victor doesn’t know Yuuri is watching. It’s late. The sun has long gone down. Yuuri had stayed on the rink to skate figures, and he’d thought that Victor had gone out onto the town. 

Instead, he’s playing in the unshoveled snow in front of the unused bike rack. Yuuri stands in the shadow of the rink’s glass entranceway, watching as Victor uses his elbows to playfully bop Makkachin’s head back and forth. He tumbles out of the way of pounces and ducks scrabbling paws as he extricates himself only to turn back and spread his arms. Makkachin barrels into his chest, knocking Victor back down to start the game again. 

Victor’s coat, scarf, and gloves are abandoned over the bike rack. His hair is a mess, and his face is flushed. His shirt is soaked as are the seat and knees of his trousers. One of his shoes is untied. Makkachin is clearly intent on slobbering all over his face, and all Victor can do after a few more knockdown is laugh uproariously as it happens. 

Yuuri has never seen Victor look happier in his life.

It’s a revelation. Yuuri retreats. He waits until he’s certain that Victor and Makkachin are gone before leaving. He walks slowly, his scarf up high and hands deep in his pockets. His heart thuds against his ribcage, heavy and hard. It makes him run, faster and harder than he should. His father greets him when he arrives home, out of breath and sweating.

“Is Victor back yet?”

For a moment, his father simply eyes him. But then he lets out a soft laugh and offers a fond smile. Yuuri blinks up at him through his foggy glasses.

“No,” his father says; “Not yet.”

 

Eros. Agape. Erotic. Innocent. They are types of love. They are expressed subconsciously until they bubble up to the surface to blossom, bloom, and overflow. 

“Where does he come up with this?” Yuri grits out as they run together up the stairwell for the second time in the day. “I swear I saw this in a movie.”

“Does,” Yuuri wheezes, two and a half steps behind Yuri’s animal-print splattered legs, “he watch a lot of movies?”

“Hell if I know,” is the groaned answer as they finally reach the top and drop down to wheeze together. “Where Victor gets his ideas is a complete mystery to everyone.”

“There’s a theory,” Yuri moans as they soak in the onsen that evening while Victor is off somewhere again as usual, “that he wakes up with ideas fully formed inside his head and then just runs with it.”

“That’s impossible,” Yuuri points out.

Yuri levels a stinkeye. “He is impossible.”

Somehow, Yuuri can’t quite agree. He thinks back to how Victor laughed as Makkachin licked his face after tussling in the snow. He thinks about how different Victor looks when he’s asleep, his fingers curled in Makkachin’s fur. He thinks of how Victor giggled, finding humour in how he ended up skating. 

Looking back on that now, Yuuri doubts Victor was drunk. He doubts if he’s ever seen Victor drunk.

“I,” he says, looking up at the cloudy sky, “don’t think he’s impossible. I think we just don’t understand him.”

Yuri doesn’t say anything. When they wake up in the morning, Victor is at breakfast, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. He waves and smiles around his hold on Makkachin, who is draped over his lap. 

“Yuuri! Yurio!” he says as they plop down across the table; there’s tea out already. “I met someone who will refit your costumes!”

“That’s—” Yuuri fumbles.

“It’s too early,” Yurio snarls.

Victor laughs. The bowl in front of him has remains of ochazuke. That explains why tea has already been served. From the shadows under his eyes and the fact Makkachin didn’t greet them, he obviously never went to sleep. Victor, aside from that first night when he fell asleep in here in the dining area and then in Yuuri’s room, doesn’t seem to sleep very much. Instead, he drinks and laughs and plays with Makkachin.

It bothers Yuuri.

 

Eros. Agape.

Erotic. Innocent.

Victor breaks suddenly. Yuuri nearly trips over Makkachin, who nearly crashes into the bike. If Yurio was still here, he would be screaming.

“What’s that?”

Yuuri follows Victor’s gaze out into the ocean. There’s several boats with bright blue and orange flags coming in. Yuuri blinks. He checks his watch. When he looks up, Victor is still watching the boats. His eyes flicker back and forth. His lips are parted and he’s breathing slightly through his mouth, thin white wisps escaping. Yuuri can see his tongue resting against the back of his bottom front teeth.

“Fishing boats,” Yuuri says; Victor blinks, his eyes focusing on the scene. “I guess the stormy conditions earlier today meant they’ve had to delay coming in.”

“Oh,” Victor says, and it comes out in a puff of white smoke. “It’s pretty.”

They stay by the railing for a long time. The scent of the sea is strong, especially since the storm that tapered off early that morning washed up a lot of debris. Yuuri watches Victor watch the boats. The way he continues breathing through his mouth. How his hands slowly drift to cup Makkachin’s ears. Yuuri wonders what he’s seeing. What he’s feeling. Behind them, cars rush by as people commute to work.

On the other side of the road, a bicyclist rings their bell. It breaks the spell. Victor shifts. Lifts his hands from Makkachin to settle back on his bike. He reaches up and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. For a split second, a tiny smile appears, but it’s gone as soon as Victor takes his hand away. 

“We’re wasting time.”

They spend over eight hours at the rink. Yuuri is on and off the ice, busy with conditioning exercises and running out for lunch halfway through the day. Victor remains on the ice when Yuuri isn’t there, skating bits and pieces of something Yuuri has never seen before. He barely looks at the convenience store bento and sports drink that makes up lunch. When he gives Yuuri advice, it’s rapidfire and blunt, and he touches quickly and often to hurry Yuuri’s understanding along. It’s incredibly exciting.

He’s creating something new.

It transforms him. His gaze is focused, but he isn’t looking at anything in the rink. When they touch, Yuuri can feel the way that Victor’s mind is moving a million miles per hour, his attention on Yuuri but also completely elsewhere. He holds himself differently. Tighter yet more flexible. Distracted but more present than he has been since he barreled into Yuuri’s life, naked as the day he was born.

Yuuko sees it, too, when she joins Yuuri during a short break. Yuuri and her exchange glances as Victor exits an Ina Bauer for the fourth time only to skate around to do it again. The execution is perfect, but it’s clearly supposed to lead into something. From the way Victor repeats it, over fifty times over the course of the day, he’s trying to figure into what. He doesn’t seem frustrated. Rather, he seems excited.

Yuuri can’t remember if Victor has ever seemed so sincerely excited about anything.

Unusually, they walk home together. Victor lets Yuuri ride his bike. It’s a reward for working so hard. Victor has never rewarded Yuuri before.

“I’m starving,” he says, eyes flickering from the sea to Yuuri and back again.

“Yeah,” Yuuri agrees. “Do you want to try something new?”

“Yes,” Victor says, and he smiles, the wide, almost comical one. “Show me a sweet you used to eat as a kid.”

They buy a box of milk caramels from a convenience store. The way Victor beams at the box is not unlike how a child would. He pays for it with his phone and spends the rest of the trek back to Yu-Topia turning the box over and over in his hands. The plastic wrapping crinkles with each turn. When they pass a bin, Victor takes the wrapping off. The thrilled noise he makes when he slides open the box to discover each caramel is individually wrapped makes Yuuri’s heart sing.

He looks so innocent. He looks so happy. Yuuri wishes that the triplets were here. They’d know the best angle to capture this.

They eat back at Yu-Topia. Yuuri plods through his greens and plain chicken breast. Victor eats exactly half a bowl of rice before he’s sprawled out sound asleep with Makkachin at his side. A couple of regulars are watching soccer and moaning loudly over their team’s poor performance. Yuuri isn’t sure how Victor can sleep like this.

“Should I get a blanket?”

Yuuri looks up. His father has come to pick up the dishes. He smiles, familiar, warm, and understanding. Yuuri wants to ask him what he understands. How he understands it. Instead, Yuuri swallows. Pushes himself to his feet.

“I’ll do it.”

By the time he comes back from Victor’s room with his blanket, Victor’s woken up. He has his arms around Makkachin, and the box of caramels is open on the table next to his unfinished rice. He looks around as Yuuri approaches. Blinks once. Twice. 

“Your father,” he says as he takes one arm off Makkachin to reach out for his blanket, “is a nice man.”

Yuuri hands him the blanket. Smiles because he doesn’t know what else to say. Victor must have been awake the whole time. 

“Sit,” Victor says as he wraps his blanket around his shoulders. “Finish your dinner.”

They stay at the table for a long time. It’s not unusual for Victor, but Yuuri usually goes to wash up after eating. He doesn’t know why, but he senses that Victor wants him here. The football game is over. The regulars, sighing over their luck, leave after paying the bill. Victor’s eyes follow them out. 

A silence hangs.

Yuuri holds his breath. 

“My father,” Victor says. 

Yuuri looks at him. Across the table. Victor doesn’t look at him. He’s inspecting Makkachin’s ears. His hair, mussed from skating, the wind, and lying on the floor, falls tangled in his face.

“We went fishing,” he says, into Makkachin’s ear. “On a boat. Just once.”

Seeing the boats must have reminded him. Yuuri waits, but Victor doesn’t say anything more. He lets go of Makkachin and plucks a caramel out of the box. He tears the wrapper open in a dip at the ridged edge and spends a long minute inspecting the sweet before putting it in his mouth. Sucks.

His eyes lower. He blinks. Slow and languid. Like he’s drunk. Like he’s wanting.

“Yuuri…”

He looks so erotic. 

“Why did you take up skating?”

It’s like getting slapped. Yuuri blinks rapidly. Victor watches him. No change in his expression. No shift of his body. Yuuri breathes in. Out. His heart hammers against his ribs. His ears. His tongue.

Love blossoms. Blooms. Overflows.

“You.”

For a moment, nothing happens. But then Victor blinks. He straightens a little. His lips part slightly. The caramel is on the middle of his tongue, still too big to swallow and not soft enough to chew. He shuts his mouth. His jaw tightens as his throat works. Swallowing saliva so he doesn’t drool.

Eros. Agape. Erotic. Innocent. 

Yuuri wants, more than anything, to understand.

His body moves. He doesn’t think. 

Victor’s lap is full of Makkachin, and the blanket is in the way. Beneath it, he’s warm and firm and still. When Yuuri kisses him, his lips taste like the caramel that’s still in his mouth. He makes a sound, warm and soft and uneven, before he kisses back, fast and swift and sure. His hands settle on Yuuri’s shoulders, his right fingers tight on where the muscles meet at the neck. For a long moment, they explore each other’s lips. Tongues. Teeth. Mouths. The caramel is gone when they pull apart. Victor looks at him. Flushed skin and half-lidded eyes.

Eros. Erotic.

“You stole my sweet,” Victor accuses.

Agape. Innocent.

“I like it,” he murmurs, and they shift together; Makkachin moves out of the way and tangles the blanket around their knees. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

The true eros. Yuuri swallows. 

“Me, too,” he says because he gets it now. “I want to see the real you.”

Victor looks at him. It’s a piercing gaze. He reaches up and traces his thumb over Yuuri’s bottom lip. He slips it into Yuuri’s mouth. The pad presses against Yuuri’s front teeth. It’s tempting to bite. It’s a little frightening to experience.

“Do you really.”

It’s not a question. It’s a wondering, like Victor doesn’t quite believe him. Yuuri breathes in through his nose. Bites down. Not hard but enough to keep Victor’s thumb from being easily pulled back. 

The way Victor smiles, bright and open and so, so wide:

“Amazing.”

 

Eros. Agape. Erotic. Innocent.

It’s connected.

It’s love.


End file.
